nut meats, pounds of confectioner's sugar, and
pints of very rich cream. When cold, to be frosted with an icing made up
of more eggs, more nuts, more cream, more everything.

The children have appointed themselves official lickers and scrapers of
the spoons and icing pans, also official guides on their auntie's
walks. They regard their Aunt Dawn as a quite ridiculous but altogether
delightful old thing.

And Norah--bless her! looks up when I come in from a romp with the
Spalpeens and says: "Your cheeks are pink! Actually! And you're losing
a puff there at the back of your ear, and your hat's on crooked. Oh, you
are beginning to look your old self, Dawn dear!"

At which doubtful compliment I retort, recklessly: "Pooh! What's a puff
more or less, in a worthy cause? And if you think my cheeks are pink
now, just wait until your mighty Von Gerhard comes again. By that time
they shall be so red and bursting that Frieda's, on wash day, will
look anemic by comparison. Say, Norah, how red are German red cheeks,
anyway?"

CHAPTER III. GOOD AS NEW

So Spring danced away, and Summer sauntered in. My pillows looked
less and less tempting. The wine of the northern air imparted a cocky
assurance. One blue-and-gold day followed the other, and I spent hours
together out of doors in the sunshine, lying full length on the warm,
sweet ground, to the horror of the entire neighborhood. To be sure, I
was sufficiently discreet to choose the lawn at the rear of the house.
There I drank in the atmosphere, as per doctor's instructions, while the
genial sun warmed the watery blood in my veins and burned the skin off
the end of my nose.

All my life I had envied the loungers in the parks--those silent, inert
figures that lie under the trees all the long summer day, their shabby
hats over their faces, their hands clasped above their heads, legs
sprawled in uncouth comfort, while the sun dapples down between the
leaves and, like a good fairy godmother, touches their frayed and
wrinkled garments with flickering figures of golden splendor, while they
sleep. They always seemed so blissfully care-free and at ease--those
sprawling men figures--and I, to whom such simple joys were forbidden,
being a woman, had envied them.

Now I was reveling in that very joy, stretched prone upon the ground,
blinking sleepily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my very
hair grow, and health returning in warm, electric waves. I even dared
to cross one